I don't know if this issue has already been discussed. If so I apologize.
Monthly Cups can take so long, that altough someone classified for a future round, when finally it is the time to start he/she is in different circumstances, maybe few time or too many games already, and it may be the case that he/she just prefers not to take part in it. Of course, there is always the possibility to resign all the new games at once, but clearly that is undesirable, for the player and for the spirit behind the rating.
So I think that it would be an improvement to this site if, whenever a new round in a MC should start, all players would receive a message (and maybe e-mail too) asking whether they wish to take part or not. I guess with a reasonable time limit to answer, say 3 days. If no answer is given, by default they may be included.
The first time i tried that, i did lose rating points. It was a gomoku monthly cup i didn't know i was signed up for. I lost points for every game i was the black player. First black move is made automatically, so my resign could only occur in move 3..
It works for any rated games. If you resign on your FIRST move, the game is unrated. The problem in Gomoku is that if you're black, the first move is made automatically for you...
Resigning unwanted games will work much better than having to answer a message or mail. If you are on vacation when the message is received you could risk to miss the final round in a tournament you have struggled hard to reach.
Yes, it is nice to be aware of the existence of this nice feature.
Speaking for myself, I try to play AT LEAST one move a day for any given game, unless my schedule runs busily or it is very tough for me to respond to certain moves (and hence I need more time to think).
Let me sincerely urge those players, who play many games simultaneously yet very slowly, to reduce the number of games, so that the group events will not drag too long. :)
Thank you everybody, knowing this feature the question is out of place. The only drawback of this policy may be if the resigned-at-once games are regarded as lost games, for statistical purposes.